


bloom

by serenfire



Series: buckle up kids we're fixing tlj [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Major Spoilers for The Last Jedi, Opening Scene, Poe deals with the effects of TFA, The Last Jedi Fix-It, and exhibiting continued characterization from TFA and his comics, while saving the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 14:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: (Major Spoilers for The Last Jedi)This is not how Paige Tico dies.Not if Poe Dameron has any say in the matter.





	bloom

“Roll call,” Pava grins into her mic.

“Black leader,” Poe echoes, checking his X-Wing for any last minute changes. Behind them, the Resistance evacuates from D’qar, but Poe sits in his craft, cracks his knuckles, and mentally prepares the checklist.

_Get in. Target the Star Destroyer’s surface cannons. Get out._

“It’s a solo mission,” Leia had told him in the control room half an hour ago. Poe remembers leaning on the counter next to the radar displays, the granite surface cutting into his bare palms. His head swims with the hot flash of Starkiller Base exploding burned behind his eyes, just last night, and then, just days before, to his time as prisoner of the First Order.

Never again.

“I’ll do it,” Poe had told Leia immediately.

Her wrinkles soften as she smiles at him: pride and regret, together as one. “It wasn’t a question.”

“Yeah, but I’ll do it, General, gladly.”

Poe powers up his X-Wing now, Pava and Iolo and Karé in his ears. His team, grounded until his solo mission is complete.

“You ready for this?” Iolo asks.

“I have to be. BB-8, what’s our ETA?”

BB-8 gently beeps at Poe, the countdown starting until takeoff. Poe takes a deep breath, centers himself in the moment, puts his palm to his chest, where Shara’s ring hangs onto a thread underneath his flight suit. Remember the past, remember the Force.

Poe looks to the horizon, the Star Destroyers inching ever closer to D’Qar.

“BB-8, punch it.”

**

“Holding for General Hux,” Poe mumbles. The target meter inches up past 80%. BB-8 in the background, calculations flying through his mechanical brain, the locations and trajectory of the surface cannons.

“ _…The Rebellion will perish in flames like the Republic did. The First Order has already risen out of the ashes of the Empire, and we will not take prisoners or converts. We will slaughter every single one of you like curs…_ ”

90%.

“Tell General Hux I have an urgent communique for him from General Leia.”

95%.

“It concerns a certain pizza parlor on the corner of 22nd and Main on Coruscant, maybe you’ve heard of it? Rico’s Pizza?”

100%.

“ _Fire on him!_ ”

“BB, let’s do this!”

Poe rockets into the target path laid out for him. G’s glide over his helmet, and even through the flight suit fabric, he feels it push him against the anchor of his ship. Poe can only move his already outstretched hands, knuckles white against the controls, swinging his ship and firing phasers deep into the gullet of the monster.

Fire licks at his craft. His mother’s craft.

Leia’s in his ear. “He’s clearing the airfield, send the bombers in.”

Poe’s comm is suddenly connected to the comms of the bombers and the entire fleet of Rebel ships, roll calls echoing through his helmet as he weaves in and out of heavy fire. Behind him, the hull rattles as BB-8 shoves his entire head into the weapons system to keep it working.

“Stay with me, buddy,” he murmurs, and it’s a train of thought. He can’t keep from speaking, it’s the nervousness. He’s worked in one air fleet or another for closer to twenty years, and still, facing off against a Star Destroyer— _that_ Star Destroyer, the one he boarded against his will only earlier this week, biting blood and dust and feeling the Force flick through his brain like it was nothing—his hands still tremor.

Karé’s in his ear again. “You got this, Black Leader,” she says. “One more cannon to go and we’ll be right on your tail.”

Poe dives and weaves, lasers hitting each other behind him and sparking in the silence of space.

Poe fires on the last cannon. BB-8 screams in pain, and Poe grits his teeth and _goes_.

He floats, victorious, for a couple of shining seconds. In his ear, laughter. Celebration.

“Advance,” Leia orders. “All bombers, advance upon that Star Destroyer.”

They took out Starkiller Base yesterday. This celebration is the reheated leftovers of the party they had last night, but it can’t stop Poe from smiling wickedly, wordlessly, happy.

And then a Dreadnought flashes into existence.

**

“We can take it out! We can take out a Dreadnought!” Poe swerves his ship, never more aware how tiny it is against a vessel of mass destruction. “We have the fleet!”

On his radar scanner, the bombers are almost over the Star Destroyer.

TIE Fighters attack Poe’s X-Wing like wasps attracted to an open flame.

“At least we can kill some First Order officers on that Destroyer!”

“Fall back,” Leia screams over the comms. “Evacuate now!”

And it’s nothing like the mood before—bombers hastily swing their bulky ships out of Destroyer range, the X-Wings loop around chasing TIE Fighters until they grab a free spot to jump to hyperspace, and Poe drops out of sight range from the Dreadnought. They can fight another day.

Except one bomber.

“This is Cobalt Five, Paige Tico! Any Resistance fighter that can hear me, my pilot is down and my circuit board is fried! I’m heading straight for the dreadnought and I can’t turn around!”

Poe turns his X-Wing in his tracks.

“Cobalt Five, this is Black Leader. I see you. Give me twenty, I’ll back your six.”

Out of the corner of his eye, most of the fleet has jumped to hyperspace, leaving a few stragglers and the last cruiser, Leia Organa in tow. She has stopped repeating the evacuation order, and Poe knows her next words are just for him.

“Poe Dameron, get out of there.”

“No can do, General. No gunner left behind.”

Leia doesn’t respond.

Poe takes out three TIE fighters with a wide spray, inching closer to the bomber shooting straight for the heart of the Dreadnought, bypassing the Star Destroyer entirely.

“All right, Paige, we have fifty TIE Fighters and two battle cruisers against us. Not the worst odds.”

“You should obey the General,” Paige says, her connection to the comm filled with static. Poe hears the sound of clattering stairs. The bomber’s cockpit is smoldering, and Poe assumes the worst: the controls are locked and ready to explode at any contact. One direct hit and it goes up in flames.

“I’m not leaving you behind. You have access to your radar map?”

Two more TIE Fighters crash into the side of the Star Destroyer as Poe directs their fire to his smaller and lighter vessel, aggravating the TIE Silencer close on his tail. Three guesses who’s in that overdecorated hulk of a ship.

“No,” Paige pants. “I’m flying blind.”

She’s rocketing toward the primed and aimed-to-kill dreadnought on a shaky and unstable bomber ready to combust.

Poe cranes his head to BB-8. “BB-8, when’s the most opportune time for her to drop her payload?”

BB-8 whirrs angrily, but spits numbers and Poe charts the location into his map.

“Paige, don’t worry, I’ll be your eyes. Prime your bombs, your opening’s coming up soon.”

The Silencer won’t get off his tail, and Poe feels a certain smugness: even with all of his Force powers, Kylo Ren’s no match for a real pilot.

But then Poe remembers the room a few days ago, Kylo Ren’s hand outstretched, reaching through his mind, and he falters. The Silencer fires a shot, and Poe’s left wing explodes in a shower of sparks.

“Poe!” Paige is screaming. “When’s my shot? Poe, come in! When’s my chance?”

Poe can see the dreadnought firing at the bomber, all of its concentrated cannons trained on Paige’s single vessel, and it hasn’t reached the target zone yet. It’s barely over the lip of the ship, and Poe struggles for breath. He struggles to see, spots in his eyes.

“Poe!” Paige’s voice, static in his ear.

BB-8 zaps him on the shoulder, and Poe grips the controls of his ship.

“Poe, the bay doors are cracking—” Paige’s voice cuts out, and Poe sees the bomber’s bay doors fly off into space. Paige is now exposed to the vacuum of space, and there is no sound. She can’t scream for help.

“Now,” Poe says, and he doesn’t know if Paige can hear him, if Paige can hear anything over the blood starting to boil in her veins. Poe pushes his X-Wing as fast as possible to the bomber, and the smoking left wing shrieks as he rips it through the air.

Poe’s control board flashes red, oxygen low, pressure dropping, flying off-kilter, prepare to evacuate. But he can’t leave, and there has to be room for one more before he goes.

The bombs drop from Paige’s ship as Poe reaches it, and they fly past him, attracted to the gravity of the massive wrought titanium ship, and Paige _heard_ him! The first fires bloom on the surface of the Dreadnought as Poe straps his oxygen mask to his face and overrides the safety protocol, opening his X-Wing hood and reaching out for Paige.

Paige lies on the metal walkway, staring down at the creation of her own making, unmoving.

As Poe convulses, body searching for oxygen in the dead air of space, he pulls Paige into the cockpit with him, closes the hood, pain washing over him in a flood but oxygen in his lungs.

Poe rips the oxygen mask off of him and places it over Paige’s mouth, and she breathes shallowly, her skin pulsing red but not dead. Not now, and not ever.

The Silencer rockets towards him in Poe’s rear sights, and he can just imagine Kylo Ren foaming at the mouth and readying for the kill.

Not today.

“BB-8,” Poe says, exhausted and fading, “punch it.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i am hoping on continuing this as a series of fics that rewrite tlj in a way that stays true to the characters' personalities, while also not being racist and not making the main character arc of the plot that of a fascist murderer, while solving problems the way you'd hoped rian johnson would have. (re: is lando going to show up?)
> 
> if you want to see that, please [subscribe to my series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/896961)!
> 
> if you want to see me explain my finnpoe and reyrose headcanons and talk a big talk about how i could direct tlj better than any male director, etc., follow me [on tumblr](http://rosesskywalker.tumblr.com/).


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